Arun's Substack

Arun's Substack

Home
Notes
Archive
About

September 2026

Published, Not Public
A decade-old promise to publish government data proactively produced a portal nobody trusts enough to build on. Twenty-fifth in a series on India's data…
 • Arun Rajiah
The Number Underneath Every Number
India counted itself every ten years since 1881, then stopped for sixteen. The count that sizes every other number went missing. Twenty-fourth in a…
 • Arun Rajiah
The State Will See You Now
The Indian state increasingly decides by machine, yet has written no rulebook for those machines. Twenty-third in a series on India's data…
 • Arun Rajiah
An Open Letter to Tamil Nadu's Ecosystem: The Decade We Build It
Over the past eleven weeks I have made one argument from many angles: that Tamil Nadu can become a pioneer in startups not just in India, but across the…
 • Arun Rajiah
The State That Cannot Be Wrong
When a database wrongly deletes your ration card, no human decided it and none can undo it before the harm lands. Twenty-second in a series on India's…
 • Arun Rajiah
What 'Top 20 Global by 2032' Actually Requires
StartupTN has set a clear and ambitious goal: to make Tamil Nadu one of the top 20 global startup destinations by 2032.
 • Arun Rajiah

August 2026

Privacy, Minus the State
India's data-protection law shields citizens from companies, then exempts the biggest data collector of all: the state. Twenty-first in a series on…
 • Arun Rajiah
Electric Dreams: How Tamil Nadu's Auto Legacy Becomes an EV and Mobility Powerhouse
For decades, Tamil Nadu has been the automobile heartland of India, sometimes called the Detroit of the country.
 • Arun Rajiah
The Data Flows Up and Never Returns
States generate more than 90% of the data on India's government portals. They are not allowed to use most of it. Twentieth in a series on India's data…
 • Arun Rajiah
The Talent Engine: Reverse-Engineering a World-Class Founder Pipeline
Chennai ranks among the top cities in Asia for affordable, high-quality talent.
 • Arun Rajiah
The Right to Read the Ledger
India built the world's most-used right-to-information law from a labour protest in Rajasthan. Two decades on, it is being quietly dismantled…
 • Arun Rajiah
© 2026 Arun Rajiah · Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start your SubstackGet the app
Substack is the home for great culture